Scolelepis (Scolelepis) kudenovi (Polychaeta: Spionidae) new to Korea

The genus Scolelepis Blainville, 1828, a member of the family Spionidae Grube, 1850, is widely distributed in almost all the sediment types of deep sea as well as sand­beaches and other near­shore areas (Blake, 1996; Rocha and de Paiva, 2012). This taxon has diagnostic features such that the prostomium is pointed anteriorly and the branchiae beginning from the setiger 2 are fused to the notopodial lamellae (Zhou et al., 2009; Meißner and Götting, 2015). Scolelepis species are grouped into two subgenera, Scolelepis and Parascolelepis, by the morphology of the hooded hooks: Scolelepis includes the species with uni­, bi­, or tridentate hooded hooks and Parascolelepis contains those with the multidentate hooded hooks (Zhou et al., 2009; Rocha and de Paiva, 2012). To date, this genus comprises 86 valid species, and 74 species of them are belonging to the subgenus Scolelepis and remaining 12 species are the components of the subgenus Parascolelepis (Sikorski and Pavlova, 2015). In East Asia, 10 species of the subgenus Scolelepis, S. (S.) angulata Zhou, 2014, S. (S.) branchia Imajima, 1992, S. (S.) daphoinos Zhou, Ji and Li, 2009, S. (S.) globosa Wu and Chen, 1964, S. (S.) kudenovi Hartmann­ Schröder, 1981, S. (S.) lefebvrei (Gravier, 1905), S. (S.) lingulata Imajima, 1992, S. (S.) planata Imajima, 1992, S. (S.) sagittaria Imajima, 1992, and S. (S.) variegate Imajima, 1992, and three species of the subgenus Parascolelepis, S. (P.) geniculata Imajima, 1992, S. (P.) texana Foster, 1971, and S. (P.) yamaguchii (Imajima, 1959), have been recorded in Japanese and Chinese waters (Ima jima, 1992; Zhou et al., 2009; Zhou, 2014). However, the genus Scolelepis has been poorly studied in Korean waters and only one species, S. (P.) yamaguchii, is recorded from this region (Paik, 1982; 1989). In this study, we dealt with the materials of Scolelepis from Korean waters, and described a new record of S. (S.) kudenovi with detailed description and illustration.